Three Times Robin Didn't Believe in Miracles, and One Time She Did
by dontforgettherobot
Summary: It wasn't just that Sir Scratchawan had turned into a turtle; miracles just weren't real.


1.

The walls of her new room were plain white. Not the freshly painted, bright, plain white. They were more like a grayish white, old scotch tape marks and abandoned nail holes scattered all over the place, signs of different people who had lived there, marking their passage.

In Canada, the walls of her room were red.

She put her suitcase on the floor. It was just temporary. She was going to find a nicer place once her papers at Metro News 1 were finalized. She would meet new people. She would finally be able to get her dogs back from Canada and take them to live with her in New York.

She let herself fall back on her new bed, which was slightly tilted to its side. Great. She noticed the ceiling was the same shade of white.

Her first few days in the city hadn't been that bad. Sure, she hadn't met anyone except her new weird roommate, and the job at Metro News 1 didn't seem as cool as she thought it would be. I mean, they had her try and read a piece about a pet pigeon who had attacked some kid, and then something about a cab driver who had supposedly seen God. But it was okay. She wasn't one to bring herself down for those little things.

It wasn't like she was hoping in some kind of miracle to come and save her from that small, gray room. Quite the opposite, in fact. She was used to having to face things all by herself, years of living with her father had at least taught her that. She had learned how to survive in way worst places than New York City, and she didn't seek nor need divine intervention.

A month later, when she moved out of the grey hole to a nice Brooklyn apartment where her five dogs were finally allowed to stay, it was because of her efforts.

And three months after that, when she met that guy Ted and his friends, she didn't think it was some sort of gift or help someone had sent to her.

It was not a miracle.

Her eyes met those of _blondie _on the other side of the booth. He half-smiled at her, not breaking eye contact.

She smiled back.

Not a miracle at all.

2.

She knew what her friends were thinking. She and Barney weren't going to last. She saw it on their faces whenever they walked into the room, whenever Barney made a comment about awesome past experiences and recognized bimbos at the bar.

She got that.

She was used to their comments, used to Ted trying to find flaws in their relationship, used to Lily forcing them to be something they were not, used to Marshall telling her it was a miracle if Barney still hadn't tried to sneak out of her bedroom window.

The truth was, there was no miracle.

Barney had tried to sneak out of her bedroom window twelve times – plus one time when he had actually succeeded – and he had always come back, crawling into her bed mumbling an apology and holding her just a little tighter than before. They would go back to sleep, both aware they were rushing into something they still weren't ready for, both too afraid to wake up the next day and realize it was just not working anymore.

There was no miracle, because they hadn't changed.

And it was maddening, because she still found herself fighting for something everyone knew was doomed, she still wanted to held on to what they had, even if what they had was sneaking out windows and having crazy fights and angry make-up sex. For some reason, she still wanted to be Barney Stinson's girlfriend.

She didn't know what it was. She thought some people would assume it was love, but love wasn't something either of them did, did they?

She was right, she convinced herself as she used her spare key to get into Barney's apartment, bracing herself for a new fight, a new step towards the finish line she knew they were both afraid to reach. They hadn't changed.

She hadn't miraculously fallen in love with Barney Stinson.

Besides, feelings just messed everything up.

It never occurred to her the two of them were by far the most messed up people she knew.

3.

As she sat on a bench in Central Park, snow slowly melting on her coat, Robin Scherbatsky was once again sure of one thing: miracles did not happen.

They just didn't. It didn't matter if you were a good person, if your life was full of good deeds and you were a freaking optimist and stuff like that. Miracles were just illusions people had come up with when life had kicked them so hard they had thought they needed something to grasp upon to go on living.

She guessed it was called hope.

She didn't need that. She never had.

Robin was not an optimist. Most people would call her a cynic – her friends always did. She didn't mind, because she liked it. She liked being so detached from hope and delusion, looking at life like she was the only one in charge of it – except now, now she was not.

Besides, if miracles did exist, they certainly wouldn't happen to her. So it was a good thing they were just a flicker of hope and desperation, because no greater power would have chosen her of all people to grant a wish to.

She let out a bitter chuckle, getting up from her bench. She shouldn't be there. She shouldn't have spent the last two hours sitting in the middle of a snowstorm, thinking about miracles and punishments and how miserably fair it was that this was happening to her. She was not supposed to care. She didn't mean to.

The snow was hitting her face as she walked, her head hurting from the cold and the alcohol and the crying – mostly the crying – but she couldn't bring herself to go home yet. There was something, something about the cold on her face and the pain it brought that made her feel better. As if somehow, that very physical pain entitled her to cry, to feel the way she was feeling.

It was an excuse, she knew that, to let herself feel and accept the other kind of pain she was experiencing in her chest, the one which wasn't at all related to the cold and the snow on her face.

She had never wanted kids. That was the plan all along. Her life was not supposed to be held back by motherhood, but somehow she realized she had never really _thought_ about it. Sure, she didn't like the idea of being a mother – her insecurities when it came to that subject disabled her from wanting to take any kind of responsibility for another human being – plus, she didn't particularly like kids, and she wanted to be focused on her career – which was hilarious if you thought about how _that_ was going. But somewhere between hating kids and focusing on work, she had forgotten to think about what the reality of having a baby would feel like.

She had to admit, earlier that week, the mere possibility of being pregnant had scared the hell out of her. But as the news of not being able to have a baby – ever – had sunk in, she had started to imagine what having her own baby in her own arms would be like. And yes, it did make her feel scared. But it also gave her a sense of family and warmness she had never thought she was going to feel, and that she now wished she could just forget.

As it turned out, it wasn't that easy. Alcohol and cigars and her friends couldn't make up for it, they just didn't help. Barney didn't help. He just contributed to make it feel more real. And she couldn't allow that notion to sink in – the notion of him and her and a family of their own. Not today, not now that everything had fallen apart without even having been built yet.

She was going to forget about this. She was going to get in control of her life again. This would always be her choice – not having kids. It was not being forced upon her.

She closed her eyes . Her imaginary kids were not there anymore.

And there was no such thing as miracles.

4.

"Robin, please, just do it."

"No."

"Look, I've read the instructions a thousand times now. It looks pretty simple as long as you can aim." He looked at the closed door before him. "Robin?"

"I'm not leaving the room until you throw that thing away, Barney."

"Come on!" He repeatedly pounded his fist against the door.

Sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the very door he was pounding on, Robin closed her eyes and tried to think of a way to block out her husband's voice from her mind. She was so mad at him for what he was trying to force her into doing, and it wasn't like he didn't know why she was acting that way. This nonexistent chapter of her life was supposed to be closed years before. She had locked that door behind her and had done a pretty good job at entirely forgetting about it, except for those few times when she and Barney had talked about it. But even then, their mutual decision had been pretty clear: they didn't want that life, not if they couldn't have it.

But now, he was insistently pounding on that damn door and begging her to come out and for the love of God, why couldn't she just _try,_ and she didn't really know how to process that.

"Barney, just leave me alone!"

There was a moment of silence on the other side of the door. "Fine!" He shouted, and she could hear the anger in his voice, she could imagine him tossing that stupid little box on their coffee table before sitting on the couch.

Minutes later, she heard her phone vibrating on the floor.

_We'll do it together. Please?_

Of course he was texting her now. She rolled her eyes.

_What, you want to pee on a stick, too?_

_Hey, if it makes you feel better, I'll even do it first._

She suppressed a smile. "Idiot," she said to the empty room.

As she got up the floor, she heard a soft knock on the door. She unlocked it, going to sit on their bed as Barney cautiously entered the room.

"Why do you want me to do it?" She asked him, a hint of fear in her voice. "I mean, we said – "

"Look, I know what we said, okay? And I still mean every word. But all signs point to this, Robin! It's been a month, you called in sick at work like a gazillion times and you threw up on my suit _twice_. I mean, I love you, Robin, but if you're gonna keep killing my suits I want it to be at least for a good reason."

She groaned. "For the millionth time, I'm sorry about the suits."

"At least use their proper _names_!" He choked.

She sighed, raising her eyes to the ceiling. "I'm sorry about Julius and Augustus."

He nodded, his solemn tone in place. "It's okay. They're in a better place now."

He spoke again after a moment of silence, waving the little white stick around. "Now, here's what's gonna happen. I'm gonna go to the bathroom, pee on this stick, and then we're gonna wait a minute and find out if I'm carrying your child, Scherbatsky. You kind of have to go with me, since we agreed we would do this together, but I'm warning you it's not going to be pretty. _Or is it?_"

Robin sighed again, louder this time, getting up from the edge of their bed and facing him. "Just give me the stupid stick so we can get it over with, okay?"

She grabbed the pregnancy test and headed for the bathroom, feeling Barney follow right behind her. She abruptly stopped and turned around, pointing the stick at him. "I'm peeing on this thing alone."

She emerged from the bathroom a couple of minutes later, the stick in her hand feeling as heavy as a brick. She went to sit beside a nervous Barney on the couch.

"You're not getting your hopes up, are you?" She asked, looking at him. She didn't know if she could handle it, feeling as if she was the one to blame. She feared she would see regret on his face, the very same thing he had promised her would never happen.

She could hear the wall clock ticking.

"What? No. You don't have to worry about that."

"But I do, Barney! You know this is why I didn't want to do it in the first place. It was really hard for me the first time around and this is just going to bring me back to square one. This sucks."

"Wait, are _you_ getting your hopes up?"

She let out a bitter laugh. "You get this is impossible, right? You realize I was told this was never going to happen? It's not like your _boys_ down there can make miracles happen."

"Well, they _are_ pretty fast and manly."

"Yeah, and I'm pretty broken."

He shook his head, putting his arm around her, and started stroking her shoulder. "Nuh-uh. Do you understand your awesomeness factor is way off the charts even though you are _Canadian_? I mean, that means you'd be like 500% awesome if you were an American. Which is why I'm happy you're not, because you'd be way more awesome than me. I mean, you still are, but I remember agreeing it was a tie, so that doesn't count."

She smiled, tears in her eyes.

"Look, I'm sorry. I was a jerk. I don't care about the stupid test. You can throw it away if you want, I won't bother you with it anymore."

Robin sniffed. "Yeah, thanks." She got up to reach for the trashcan, shooting a look at the stick as she walked. "Anyway, there's not even a plus sign, just a little blue line."

That didn't surprise her. There were no miracles in the realistic world of Robin Scherbatsky, just a minus sign on a pregnancy test.

Barney leapt off the couch, snatching the stick off of Robin's hand and clutching it in his fist.

"Ew, Barney, I peed on that." She complained, looking at him as he fumbled with a piece of paper in his other hand. She watched as a big smile started forming on his face. "What?"

"It's a little blue line."

"Yeah, I just told you, it's a minus sign."

"No, Robin, it's a blue line. It means it's positive." She froze, looking at him with wide eyes.

Positive.

"It's positive, Robin."

He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her and burying his face in her hair as a bewildered Robin held on to the back of his suit jacket, fists clenched tight.

She peed on seven more sticks, went to see three more doctors, freaked out eleven times and watched Barney freak out eleven more, she threw up on five more suits, felt one-hundred and twenty-seven little kicks inside her belly and craved tacos for eight more months before finally admitting defeat.

She was not an optimist. She didn't believe in unicorns and fairies and she didn't think all stories had a happy ending. But as she held her baby girl on her chest for the first time and as she watched how small she looked in Barney's arms, she knew she was wrong.

Miracles did exist.

They just happened to have tiny fingers and the fairest blonde hair on their head.


End file.
